


Gardening Advice

by VinWrit



Series: The Upper Slaughter Gardening Society. [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidental summoning, Don’t copy to another site, Gardening, Ineffable Husbands but they’re not together yet., Shipping, Written at 3am for Reasons, complete and utter crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinWrit/pseuds/VinWrit
Summary: A hapless gardener gets more than she bargained for.Or; the one where Crowley gets summoned halfway across the country by a dodgy plant food recipe.





	Gardening Advice

“Oh.” Said Susan, staring at the burnt circle in the centre of her potting-shed floor. “Uh... whoops?”

 

“Whoops indeed.” Came a mildly acerbic voice from the middle of the circle. “What on this blessed bloody earth is going on?” 

 

Looking back on the incident, Susan realised that her neighbour’s so-called ‘fertiliser recipe’ called for some mildly suspicious ingredients. But, surely burnt feathers and crushed adder fangs weren’t that different from the blood-ash-bone mix the garden centre sold?

 

“I’m still waiting for an answer.” Said the man in the middle of the circle, his expression somewhere between mildly inconvenienced and bemused.

 

Well,  man was probably not the best description of him. He was definitely man-shaped, with long-ish red hair and a handsome face, dressed sharply in black and grey. His shoes looked like snakeskin, and his eyes were hidden by a pair of vintage sunglasses which were surely unnecessary in the gloom. 

 

He had also appeared in the middle of the shed in a flare of flame, and had scorched a circle into the rug Susan had put down to stop it getting cold in winter. Something that, in her books, no ordinary human could do.

 

A shame. She’d rather liked that rug.

 

“It’s my neighbour’s fault, I guess.” Said Susan eventually, shrugging. “She’s one of those witchy types, you see; all black clothes and purple eyeshadow and summoning ghosts at midnight under a full moon.”

 

“And what does she have to do with this, then? I was enjoying a perfectly good lunch!” 

 

“Well...” Susan thought for a moment. How could she explain this? 

 

“Well, I figured I’d ask her for her fertiliser recipe. I can never get my roses to bloom. I guess she pranked me, or something.” 

 

The man raised an eyebrow above the rim of his sunglasses.  He was definitely her type, she decided. 

 

“Doubt it.” He said. “That kind of thing never happens. Ineffability and all that.” 

 

“What?”

 

“Ineffability. Never being able to understand the inner workings of the universe.” He shrugged. “Something like that, anyway. This was probably  someone’s idea of a joke, but definitely not the brainchild of some goth girl. Where are we?”

 

“In my potting shed.” Said Susan. In her twenty-five years on this planet, she’d been asked weirder questions. “On the outskirts of the village of Upper Slaughter, in Gloucestershire.”

 

“Wow.” He said. “That’s a long way from the Ritz. The angel’s going to kill me.”

 

Susan laughed. “Yeah. Sorry about that, mister...?”

 

“Crowley.” He said, sticking out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

 

“Mister Crowley. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

 

“I need to find a way back to London.” He said. “For goodness’ sake, the boys downstairs’ll have a field day if they find out about this. I bet it was Hastur.”

 

He sighed. “But then, I doubt Hastur has the brains for it. Maybe it was Dagon. He’s probably the only one with a sense of humour.”

 

Susan frowned. It was her fault to begin with that he was stuck, and Crowley looked like his train of thought had been rather violently derailed.

“Er... what exactly can I do to help? If anything?”

 

He looked up. “Do you have a phone?”

* * *

“Hi, angel.” Said Crowley, standing in Susan’s living room, twisting the cable of the ancient landline receiver nervously in his hands. There was a distinctly unhappy huff from the other end of the line.

 

“Yeah, I get it, I’ll pay you back for the bill. I know, I’m sorry.”

 

Susan couldn’t help but overhear the man on the other end of the phone ask a question in a worried tone.

 

Crowley sighed. “Yeah, a summoning. Nobody discorporated me on the other end, though, so that’s a bonus.”

 

Crowley paused. “Look.” He said. “I’m in a village called Upper Slaughter, I’m fairly sure you visited once. The little house near the allotments, you can’t miss it. The keys to the Bentley are in my coat pocket.  And then, we can go back to your bookshop and get roaring drunk.”

 

There was a murmur of assent from the other man on the phone. 

 

“Fine, Yeah, I’ll have to owe you one. See you soon. Don’t wreck my car. Bye.”

And he put the phone back on the hook. 

 

Susan turned to him. “Was that your boyfriend?”

 

Crowley paled slightly, almost jumping in shock, before looking at her curiously from behind the sunglasses. “Nope.” He laughed, a high-pitched, nervous sound. “Where on earth did you get that- quite frankly, ridiculous-idea?!”

 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Susan squeaked, not noticing how he flinched slightly at the mention of the Almighty. She blushed, the tips of her ears reddening. “It’s just... you called him ‘Angel’, and I just thought...”

 

“Nah. Aziraphale? He’s a literal angel. And I’m a demon. Serpent of Eden, and all that malarkey.”

 

“Right.” Susan deadpanned. “And I’m Freddy Mercury.”

 

Crowley lowered his sunglasses, and she suddenly understood why he wore them. His eyes were a golden-yellow that faded to green at the edges, his irises seemingly glowing, and his pupils were vertical slits. They had a slightly glassy quality that no human eyes could ever possess. They were the eyes of a snake. 

 

“Okay.” Said Susan, reeling. “Wow. Demon. Cool.”

 

“Righty-o, then.” Said Crowley, rubbing his hands together, replacing the glasses and giving her a sharp-edged grin. “Aziraphale’ll be a few hours. Poor thing drives like a snail. In the meantime, I know quite a bit about gardening. I’ll see what I can do to help.”

* * *

 

Two hours later, when Crowley’s friend; the blond angel in the bow-tie; had arrived in a glorious vintage Bentley, of all things, Susan waved goodbye to him and then made herself a cup of tea. 

 

It was a shame the two of them weren’t dating, she decided.  They would certainly make a cute couple.

 

The red-haired demon had left a business-card on her coffee table; blank white, with his name and a drawing of a snake wearing sunglasses, a phone number, and a single line of gardening advice;

 

“Don’t forget to threaten the roses.”

 

And that night, Susan’s garden bloomed into glorious colour.

At the same time, Petra-next-door’s prize roses wilted and died.


End file.
